Powerful Galactic Winds and the Gas around Galaxies

Abstract: Our understanding of galaxy evolution centers around questions of how gas gets into galaxies, how it participates in star formation and black hole growth, and how it is returned to its galactic surroundings via feedback. I will present observational results for a sample of compact starburst galaxies that are driving fast outflows (at z>0.4), and for a sample of local galaxies with spatially extended outflows identified in spatially resolved spectroscopy (at z<0.1). These results have broader implications for how gas is consumed and expelled at the centers of massive galaxies, the physical limits of feedback from stellar processes in enriching the circumgalactic medium, and the observable timescales and evolution of galactic winds. I will also discuss prospects for characterizing outflows and the gas around galaxies, in both absorption and emission, using multi-wavelength spectroscopy with existing and future facilities.